


If that Mockingbird Don’t Fly

by Usher_Julian



Category: HHN - Fandom, Halloween Horror Nights - Fandom
Genre: Dead People, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, HHN, HHN Icons, Halloween, Halloween Horror Nights, Horrible Puns, Murder, Murder Puns, Potatoes, Stabbing, puns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-16
Updated: 2016-02-16
Packaged: 2018-05-21 00:31:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6031570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Usher_Julian/pseuds/Usher_Julian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Ira Saunders moved to Carey Ohio he was expecting a lot of things. He was <em>not</em> expecting to meet the Caretaker of Shady Oaks Cemetary, nor was he expecting the old man to be so... hospitable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If that Mockingbird Don’t Fly

**Author's Note:**

> Murder anyone?

When Ira Saunders disembarked the train at the station in Carey, Ohio, he had high hopes. He’d come from Maine at his brother’s recommendation that working a farm in the Midwest would be better for his constitution. Ira had grown up on Maine Lobsters and shelling crawfish, and had learned to cross a swaying boat in a harbor without tipping around the same time he’d learned to walk on solid ground. But as he approached forty the winters were getting worse for him, and Ira had a cough in the cold that always rattled at his bones, as if his sinews themselves were trying to shake free. His brother, James, older and wiser by a good eleven months, convinced him that moving to the Midwest, where summers were golden and he could get a job working the land, would help with his constant cough.

A month into his stay in Carey and he’d used up all his coin on board and food, no farms were hiring a fisherman from the east, and the tail-end of fall was whispering its way through the tall grasses of the Willamette Valley. James had been wrong. The cold might have appeared later than he was used to, but every crack of sharp wind and every morning where the brown grass crunched low beneath his feet made his throat contract and spasm even as he tried to hold back cough after cough from wracking his body. No one was going to hire a middle-aged fisherman from out east to work picking corn in the dead of autumn, but _especially_ no one was going to hire a sick fool of a man who thought that moving to Ohio would save his lungs.

Worst of all, perhaps, James was no longer returning his letters. Ira had written every other day the first week, and then three times a week, and then once, but by the second week James had stopped responding, and where irritation had burned before at his brother ignoring him, a new fear now wormed its way into his heart, because three weeks of silence was less probably spite and more possibly something worrisome. James would not have ignored Ira for so long even to be contrary. 

But there was nothing for Ira to do. He’s spent the last of his savings on his fourth week at the cheap inn and a bag of potatoes he was sure he’d somehow be able to fashion into something consumable. If he’d married young like James had perhaps his wife could have done something with the tubers, but he knew exactly nothing about the root-vegetables besides the fact that mashed they tasted divine. So his money was gone, spent on a room at an under-stocked inn and a sack of potatoes he didn’t know how to cook, and he couldn’t exactly walk back to Maine.

And then the week was up and Ira was unceremoniously shoved from the establishment with naught but the threadbare clothes on his back and the last potato clutched in his work-roughened hand. He stood for a moment, contemplating the empty street and the darkening sky, and pulled his vest closer around himself to stay warm in the sudden chill.

He had nowhere to go, and his only friend in town was a week-old vegetable clutched in his hand, and so with a quick movement to tug his hat lower upon his head, he wandered off, letting his feet choose the direction.

He walked slowly, watching the ground disappear beneath him and ignoring all the shop-fronts and sporadic bursts of pedestrians he passed. He didn’t notice as the sky began to bloom into bright red and oranges, and then fade into a dark purple, nor did he notice as shop-fronts gave way to wide houses and then fields. He did notice, as it became more and more difficult to see his feet, that the sun had set, and when he finally looked up to see where his feet had led him he saw a tall, proud iron gate before him with an inscription on a plaque that said, “SHADY OAKS CEMETARY.”

Ira shivered. He wasn’t one to be superstitious, but he did not at all like that his feet had led him to graveyard. Not one bit.

Not for the first time he wished that he’d never left the comfort of Maine for the harsh newness of the Midwest, but he shook away his irritation. He did not have time to wallow, it was after dark and he had nowhere to go. And it was getting cold.

A sharp wind threatened to blow off his hat, but a sudden bout of coughing kept him preoccupied, and he stayed there a few minutes, hunched over in front of the iron gates of the cemetery, trying and repeatedly failing to catch his breath.

His panting slowed, though his throat still felt shredded. And it would continue to feel so for the rest of the season and onward, until spring peaked its head around the corner. He looked through the bars of the gate and saw a mausoleum no more than thirty yards from where he was standing. A shiver ran up his spine at the thought of spending the night amongst the dead, but a stone shelter built for the dead sounded a hell of a lot better than spending the night out in the open, free to be harried by the chill wind that insisted on whipping its way through the darkening landscape. Ira squared his shoulders and reached a hand out to the bars of the gate. He stood there another moment, contemplating his options, searching his brain for _any other_ options at all. There was nothing.

He pushed and it creaked open with hardly any resistance. Ira raised his eyebrows. He’d expected to have to muscle his way in through a rusty and decrepit gate, like some fire-side spook story from his youth. But that was ridiculous, he realized with no little exasperation, because this was probably the only cemetery in Carey. Of course it would be up-kept. 

As he hurried through the dark of the graveyard, trying to get to the mausoleum as quickly as possible to get out of the wind, he couldn’t help but look around him. He peered into the darkness, and the darkness seemed to peer back at him, and if he strained his ears he thought he could almost hear something past the rushing of the wind. It was almost like music was playing, deeper in the cemetery, but that was ridiculous. Who would be out at night playing music for the dead?

Ira quickened his step anyway and in no time he was at the mausoleum only to come once more to a dead end. The door to the stone structure was locked tight. Ira pushed against the metal door, shoved his shoulder against it till he thought he would bruise, but it didn’t budge. Ira looked around himself again, looked at the way the sliver of moon barely glinted off the smoothed headstones, the statues of angels curling their hands ever upward. He shivered, in the chill and clamped his mouth shut, trying to ward off an oncoming cough. There were no other structures nearby, and as much as he already felt guilty trying to sleep in the resting place those who had passed, he drew the line at venturing further into the graveyard. Despite his lack of belief in the supernatural, there was something not quite normal about this burial ground, and he wouldn’t be stupid enough to venture further into it.

He settled down on the stoop of the mausoleum, hoping the shallow indent of the doorway would provide him at least _some_ protection from the wind. As he curled up in the miniscule crevice he wondered if his knees could bear the strain of being bent all night, or if his joints and muscles would stiffen to the point of pain as he tried to sleep in this godforsaken place.

Shaking away the depressing thought, Ira brought the potato up and rested it on his knees. Could he eat it? He’d gotten by with the rest of the potatoes well enough, borrowing the innkeeper, Mary’s kitchen a few times. He couldn’t make a meal as good as his Mama’s, or as good as James’s wife could, but it had been good enough. There was no cooking out here. There were no stoves or kettles in a graveyard. Ira brought the potato closer to his face, trying to see through the darkness. Would it be safe to eat a raw potato? What would it taste like? Would it fill his stomach?

A soft crunching noise pervaded his thoughts, and he whipped his head around trying to see what had made the noise. In the dim light he could barely see a foot in front of his face, but another crunch, and another told him that there was _something_ out there that he wasn’t seeing. He tightened his hand around the tuber and tried to shove himself farther back into the doorway, but there was no place to go. 

Whatever was making the noises was getting closer and closer, and Ira’s shoulders were getting tenser and tenser. He pulled his arm back, readying it to spring if something dangerous were to appear. When a tall, dark shadow appeared before him he acted on instinct, winding his hand back and letting loose. He watched as the potato arched across the sky and hit the shadow who let out a short huff on impact. Ira clenched his teeth and creakily got to his feet, ready to flee at the soonest opportunity.

The shadow turned to him, a long, black ghost, and began stalking over to him with vigor. Ira was frozen in fear, horror pumping through his veins, making his shoulders seize up and his legs refuse to move. As the shadow got closer and closer, Ira was able to see more details of the creature, he began to make out long arms and longer legs, a long cloak-like coat, a stove-pipe top hat, a dark bag clutched in a single claw, long grey hair, the crows feet and laugh lines of an older man. 

The fight left Ira upon the realization that he’d just hurled his last morsel of food at an old man carrying a leather medical bag. The man stopped before him. “Who are you and what are you doing here?” The man asked, and Ira was slightly startled at how strong his voice was. He’d expected something raspy or reedy, something like the paper and lace whispers that he so often heard with the old folk he’d encountered in his life. Instead this man spoke with assurance, strength, and Ira hunched his shoulders.

“I’m sorry, mister. I’m real sorry. I just needed someplace to spend the night and my feet dragged me here.”

When there was no immediate response Ira forced himself to look up into the man’s face. There was a fire in his eyes, a glint, that hadn’t been there before. In softer tone of voice the man said, “Now, what would drive a man to spend the night in a cemetery? Did your wife run you out of the house?” Ira shook his head. “Are you—no offense intended—but are you a transient?” Ira pulled his scrap of a vest tighter around him and shuffled his feet in lieu of an answer. “Ah. I see.” 

“Look, I really don’t want to be a bother none. You don’t need to be calling the law. I’ll just skedaddle real quick and we can both pretend this never happened.” Ira held up his hands in surrender. He didn’t know where else he’d go, but this had obviously been a mistake. He should never have stepped foot past the gate.

The man moved his hands to clasp each other in front of him, his medical bag hanging from his withered hands. “Now, let us not be too hasty. Why don’t you tell me your story—” A sudden burst of wind caught Ira the wrong way and his throat spasmed as a cough ripped through his throat. “And let us walk somewhere warmer, shall we?” The old man held a kind hand out to Ira, but still Ira stood, unsure of the man’s intentions.

“Why?” he rasped out, sounding more like an old man than the old man did.

The man gave Ira a comforting smile that Ira couldn’t help relaxing at the sight of. “Why, I am a physician my dear man. It is in my bones to extend a helping hand when I see a person in a desperate situation.” And then he gave a low chuckle, “Besides that, I am the Caretaker of this cemetery, and it would be remiss of me to let a man freeze to death amongst the dead when there are warmer places to be. Come back to my home, it is just a little ways that way,” he pointed back towards the entrance and then to the left, “and we can talk. My name is Albert. Albert Caine.” He offered his hand.

Ira grasped the hand loosely in his, not wanting seem over-bearing. “Folks call me Ira. Ira Saunders is my full name.”

“The pleasure is mine,” Albert said with a kind smile.

Ira couldn’t help but trust the kind older gentleman, and so when the man took a hesitant step in the direction of his house Ira followed, masking his remaining suspicion with the straightening of his back. They walked side-by-side, and as they walked Ira explained his situation, his lack of food and board, the silence from his brother, his desperation to head back home but his inability to do so. He was so caught up in his tale of woe, and comforted by Albert’s grandfatherly expression that he barely noticed them passing most of the graveyard by. However, he _did_ notice when, upon rounding a bend, he came face-to-face with a large Victorian house with tall pointed windows and a veranda. Ira whistled. “That’s a beautiful old house, Mister Caine.”

Albert smiled indulgently. “Thank you, it is rather large, but my family is extended and my front rooms are often uses as a funeral parlor for those who are soon to be buried in my cemetery, so it really isn’t as impressive as I am sure you are thinking.”

Ira scratched the back of his head and then pulled his hat lower. “Still beautiful.”

“Thank you,” Albert replied graciously, and then ushered Ira up the steps and through the front door. The rooms were dark, and the front hallway was only passably visible due to some single candles scattered on end tables. Ira cocked his head, straining to hear any of the supposed extended family that would fill such a large house, but the building was eerily silent. As if he knew what Ira was thinking, Albert said, “My family is currently… celebrating. They are attending a party I should say, really a party to die for. Having a screaming good time, no doubt.” 

Ira raised his eyebrows. “And you aren’t going to join them?”

Albert chuckled. “I was on my way when I came across you, my good man. I will return as soon as we figure out what to do about you.”

Ira frowned, feeling suddenly defensive. He crossed his hands over his chest, “What _about_ me?”

Albert laughed delightedly. “Oh, don’t sound so aggressive, Ira. I merely meant that I want to help you. I want to offer you a job as a handy man around here until you can afford to get back to your beloved Maine.”

Ira relaxed, his hands loosened and fell limply to his side. “Oh. Well, Mister Caine, I don’t want to be a bother to no one, nor an imposition. I really don’t want to be rufflein’ any feathers.”

“Why, you’ll be the exact opposite!” Albert cried out. “I always welcome new faces to the house. You’ll be fitting in around here in no time.”

Ira couldn’t believe his luck. He gaped at his new employer. “You mean it, mister? Really?”

Albert nodded. “Of course.”

Ira’s lips dipped into a slight frown, “And will I have to,” he hesitated, “interact with any of the dead bodies or anything? I don’t know if I’d be any good around dead folk.”

“Do not worry so much. I won’t make you play with the dead or anything. That’s my job.” Ira grimaced and Albert was quick to offer a smile, “Old mortician joke, I apologize.”

Ira couldn’t help but feel slightly disgusted with the thought of _playing_ with corpses, but it was really his own sensibilities getting in the way. He would probably soon get used to the old man’s odd jokes. 

A movement in Ira’s periphery made him jump, and he spun to see a small girl sliding into the room. She had jet black hair, cut to her shoulders but ragged, as if she had diced at it herself, and her dress was black with a long white collar that resembled Albert’s own attire. She grinned at Ira, and it reminded him of a feral dog his dad had shooed out of the neighborhood when he was a kid. She was eerie and pale, and where Albert had an almost kind smile etched into his face, this girl looked wild and malicious. But upon seeing her Albert got a rather delighted look upon his face.

“Cindy, my darling,” he reached for her and she surged forward to wrap her arms around his waist. Albert turned back to Ira and said, “This is my daughter, Cindy.” Ira felt spike of surprise flit through him, because though he would swear that all of Albert’s smiles up till this point had been genuine, the smile he leveled at his daughter had a unique feel to it that made Ira question how real Albert’s previous expressions had been. “Cindy, this is Ira. He’ll be with us from now on.”

“Just for a bit,” Ira was quick to point out, but Cindy had already turned back to him with a particularly mangled grin.

“I’m sure you’ll be fun,” she growled, not losing her permanent-seeming smile. And then just like that she was gone again, disappearing into the blackness of the house without a backwards glance until Ira wasn’t sure if she’d ever been there at all, but looking at Albert’s indulgent smile he knew that he had indeed actually met the creepy little girl.

He shuddered.

“Well come on then,” Albert said and began leading Ira down the long, sparsely-lit hallway, “I’ll show you to your new room, and you can settle in.”

Ira ducked his head, “Thanks again, helping a guy out, mister. You’re a real stand-up guy.”

“I’m certainly glad you think so,” Albert said, and opened the door at the end of the hall, “I’ve been told I have a killer disposition.” 

The door opened into a dark flight of stairs. Ira coughed, a sudden bout of chill stamping through the air, but he followed the older man as he made his way down the flights of stairs. “Sorry bout the cough, it gets worse as it gets colder. Winter’s a nightmare.”

“I can imagine,” Albert’s voice floated back to him, “I can help you rid yourself of that cough. Permanently.”

Ira blinked. “You think so? You said you were a doc, right? Back home they said there was nothing for it.”

Albert laughed charmingly, and the way it bounced back off the tight brick walls of the stairwell made the noise warble and echo until it was something ghastly. Ira shook his head to snap himself out of it. It wasn’t like him to be so flighty, scared over a laugh indeed.

“So,” Ira said, grasping at their previous conversation, desperate for another topic to rid his mind of the awful laughter, “what kind of party was it? That you’re going to later, I mean. Is it fancy? Dress up, or a shindig out back kind of deal?”

“Just a family affair,” Albert said with a slight shrug that Ira could only barely make out. “It promises to be very spirited. I’m sure someone will lose their head by the end of the night.”

Ira let out a bark of laughter that morphed quickly into a sharp cough. Ira could imagine Albert’s kind expression tinged with worry, and he flushed. He didn’t need pity, and quickly resumed their conversation before Albert could ask after him. “Where is this party? Some place big? A backyard? Who’s going? You invited half the town probably if you’ll be wanting something high-spirited. The more the merrier, isn’t that right Mister Caine?”

Albert stepped down the last step into a room that was far more lit than the rest of the house. Ira paused a few steps from the bottom at the sight of the grimy tiled floor with a drain in the center, and a large curtain that blocked off almost half the room. He shuddered. “Is this the morgue?” he asked in a voice a few pitches higher than he meant.

Albert turned to face Ira and took a step back. He gestured wide with a small grin on his face. And then said, as if he hadn’t heard Ira’s comment about the morgue, “My party? Why it was at the cemetery of course. And attending are all the bodies of the dead.” And with a dramatic sweep of his hand, Albert drew back the curtain, revealing a rough-shod surgery, complete with rusting gurney and leather restraints, and a flickering overhead light that was blinding in its fluorescence. 

Ira seized up, and his heart dropped, stone cold, to his feet. He made as if to turn around and flee back to the first floor of the house. But a quick glance behind him showed the maniacal face of Cindy Caine, and then she shoved, hard, and Ira tumbled abruptly down the rest of the stairs to the tiles. 

“Don’t be like that,” Albert said, as Ira tried unsuccessfully to catch his breath and scramble to his feet, “You’re going to be part of something big. You should be proud.”

Ira attempted to move away from the advancing man, but Cindy shoved him whenever he seemed almost able to stand independently, and then she would skip away before he could retaliate. “Lemme go!” he demanded with a slight slur The little girl chuckled, and it was _menacing_. It was a snarl more than anything else.

“Now this just will not do,” Albert said reprimandingly, and then all Ira could focus on was the ringing in his ears, the spinning of the room, and the sharp pain blossoming above and behind his right ear. He felt himself being dragged across the floor and being lifted onto the table, but as much as he tried to struggle, his limbs refused to operate correctly. He felt leather straps strain against his wrists and his ankles, and he endeavored to thrash harder, to kick out, but by the time equilibrium was returning to his brain, he was already secured.

“Please! Let me go! I don’t know why you are doing this, but please let me leave!” Ira yelled out, trying and failing to jackknife off the table.

“Now, now. Quiet down,” Albert said, and calmly stuffed a discolored cloth into Ira’s mouth.

Ira gagged at the rough cotton and the faintly metallic smell of the fabric. A full body shudder wracked him, partly from the coolness of the room and partly in fear of what was going to happen. A cough tried to work its way up his throat, but the cloth muffled it.

“Ah,” Albert said slowly, as he set about gathering surgical implements and ordering them on a metal tray next to Ira’s head, “the smell of death gives you a chill.” 

A childish laugh from Ira’s other side made him whip his head around to face a wicked gracing Cindy’s face. “Freeze him out, Daddy,” she growled. 

Albert let out a charmed little huff of breath. “Now darling, you know my plans tonight run a bloodier route.”

Ira couldn’t help letting out high-pitched keening noise, and Albert turned to him. “Tsk, tsk, Ira. It will be even stronger from a fresh kill. Oh, Ira my friend, you do not know how keenly your death is going to aid my cause.” He began straightening the utensils by minute amounts. Ira winced with each clink of metal on metal. “You see, Ira, I desire knowledge. A specific knowledge. I want to know…” he slammed a tool down sharply, rattling the tray, “I _need_ to _know_! That last moment, that tiny, infinitesimal moment when a person passes from life to death. I want to know where that edge is, the exact moment a person tumbles over into death.”

Cindy stepped forward, and Ira was suddenly overwhelmed, bracketed on both sides by the horrible surgeon and his sinister daughter. He could not keep his eyes on both of them at once, could not keep them in sight, and he was trying frantically to keep his eyes flickering between the two of them so no movement would surprise him. Cindy brought a delicate hand up to card through Ira’s sparse hair and he flinched as much as a person could while strapped to a grimy gurney. 

“Is it the moment your heart stops?” Albert asked in a quieter voice, returning to straightening his tools. “Or is it the moment when all brain function ceases? Because those two things do not always coincide.”

Ira strained against the straps, arched his back of the table in an effort to get free, but it only resulted in Albert putting a hand to his chest to restrain him.

“When exactly does a person _cease_ …” he paused dramatically, “to _be_?” He sighed, “Hopefully Ira, my dear Ira Saunders, you will help me in this endeavor. Ira, we’ve only known each other a short time, but I trust that you understand the gravity of the situation.”

Ira wiggled again, struggled against the restraints. 

Cindy skipped backwards, her smile turning slightly wilder. “Daddy is it time?”

“Yes, Pumpkin, it’s time.”

Cindy clapped her hands together excitedly.

Albert turned his attention to the surgical tools. “Now, what to use, what to use,” he mused to himself. “Eenie, meenie, miney, moe,” he said slowly, pointing to each tool in turn, “catch a body by the toe. If he hollers,” he smirked, “cut him low. Eenie, meenie, miney…moe.” He ran a finger against the tool before holding it up to the light for Ira to see. Ira flinched.

The tool looked like a giant pair of curved shears, or medical clamps, with slight teeth. It glinted ominously in the light of the lamp swinging above the table. 

Ira arched off the table, and the leather straps bit into his skin so sharply that blood sprung to the surface.

Albert aimed the metal claws in the air, positioned high above Ira’s chest. He met Cindy’s eye above Ira’s body and they exchanged indulgent smiles. “Hush little baby, don’t say a word. Daddy’s going to buy you a mocking bird.” He spoke the words in a low, rough tone of voice, and he slowly lowered his eyes to meet Ira’s. Ira’s eyes widened in a silent plea that Albert ignored. “And if that mockingbird don’t fly, Daddy says it’s time to _die_!” And the shears descended, impaling Ira’s chest. A spurt of blood stained the wall a vibrant red, and Ira gasped.

He could feel every movement of the shears as Albert carved deeper and deeper into his chest, could feel the gurgling of blood as the claws sliced at his lungs, the cold air straight on his organs as he was vulnerable to chill air. He felt the final pull as Albert tossed the shears aside and reached into Ira’s chest with his hand and yanked out Ira’s still beating heart.

The blood pumped for a few seconds in the heart Albert held in his hands, and then that too stopped.

Ira’s eyes were opened wide, unblinking. There was no more pain.

“Look, darling,” Albert said, offering Ira’s heart to Cindy.

She grasped at the red organ with both hands and a shriek of joy. “Thank you Daddy! I love it!”

Ira could feel, only in the loosest definition of the word, as his heart passed from the Caretaker to his daughter. He could not see anything, could not feel the pain of being torn open, but still _knew_. His consciousness was still though, though fading slowly.

“Did you catch it this time, Daddy?” Cindy asked, cradling the heart against her chest.

Albert made a slightly disappointed noise. “Not this time, Sweetie. Maybe next time I’ll see it, see the moment a person fades.”

Ira wished he could laugh. He was dead, he knew that. He knew that he would not blink or breath or laugh ever again. But he still wished he _could_ laugh, could tell Albert that he’d lost, that Ira had won. Ira would know, he would see when he was fully gone. Albert would be left once more in the dark. Albert will _never_ get it right, he’d already counted this ‘experiment’ as a failure, when Ira hadn’t even _crossed_ yet.

“We’ll find another one, Daddy. I promise,” Cindy said with a comforting voice.

“I know darling.” Albert took a deep breath. “Until then, let us go and celebrate with our family in the cemetery.”

Ira watched without watching as the horrifying father-daughter duo left the room, clutching each other’s hands. He gave a final fading grasp of pride at having succeeded at something with no effort that his killer had evidently been working at for years, and a single whispy regret that he never got back to his brother, never got back to his little town in Maine. Then Ira was gone.


End file.
